Jane O’Meara Sanders (right) and her husband Credit: Matthew Thorsen

Updated at 3:07 p.m.

A spokesperson for Jane O’Meara Sanders said Tuesday that federal authorities have concluded a long-running probe into her tenure as president of the now-shuttered Burlington College.

“Jane Sanders has been informed that the U.S. Attorney in Vermont has closed its investigation of the Burlington College land deal and has decided not to bring charges of any kind,” spokesperson Jeff Weaver said in a written statement. In a phone interview, Weaver said the feds had shared the news with O’Meara Sanders’ attorneys in “the last couple of days.”

Federal authorities had not previously confirmed the investigation’s existence. Kraig LaPorte, a spokesperson for U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan, said Tuesday that he could neither corroborate nor refute Weaver’s statement, but he noted that his office does “communicate with represented parties.”

The news lifts a cloud that has hovered over O’Meara Sanders and her husband, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), for nearly three years. It comes as Sen. Sanders contemplates a second run for president.

As Seven Days and other news outlets have reported, federal authorities have investigated whether Burlington College fraudulently obtained a $6.5 million bank loan in 2010 to purchase a new, $10 million lakeside campus. According to former donors, O’Meara Sanders — then the president of the college — inflated the size of pledged donations in order to secure the loan.

The college closed in 2016, citing the “crushing weight of debt” incurred by O’Meara Sanders when she oversaw the purchase of the 32-acre campus.

Eight people associated with the college told Seven Days that they had been interviewed by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation over a two-year period. One, former Burlington College president Carol Moore, said that FBI agents were particularly curious about her predecessor’s role in the matter.

“Was there any collusion between Jane Sanders and the bank?” Moore said, quoting an FBI agent who interviewed her in April 2017. “Did she falsify records in order to get the loan from the bank?”

O’Meara Sanders has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, as has her husband.

“Jane is grateful that the investigation has come to an end,” said Weaver, a former chief of staff and campaign manager for Sen. Sanders. “As she has said from the beginning she has done nothing wrong and Jane is pleased that the matter has now come to a conclusion.”

The investigation appeared to stem from a January 2016 complaint filed by Charlotte attorney and Vermont Republican Party vice chair Brady Toensing. In a statement Tuesday, he called it “a shame” that those affected by the college’s closure “lost so much as a result of Ms. Sanders’s misconduct, but I am pleased that the matter was professionally investigated and assessed.”

Toensing, who has also accused Sen. Sanders without evidence of pressuring the bank to make the loan, repeated those allegations in his statement.

“Criminal standards are extremely high, but now that the investigation is over, I look forward to a full explanation from Senator Sanders and his wife about the financial discrepancies in her loan application and the Senator’s involvement in procuring the loan,” Toensing wrote.

Weaver responded to Toensing’s comments by noting his affiliation with President Donald Trump.

“Brady Toensing has been involved in a multiyear political smear campaign against Jane Sanders ever since he leveled these unfounded accusations,” Weaver said in the phone interview. “I think everybody knows that he does the president’s bidding. He was the president’s campaign chairman in Vermont during the 2016 election, and I think that tells Vermonters all they need to know about the credibility of his smears.”

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This article appears in Nov 10, 2018 – Mar 31, 2019.

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Paul Heintz was part of the Seven Days news team from 2012 to 2020. He served as political editor and wrote the "Fair Game" political column before becoming a staff writer.

29 replies on “Feds Drop Burlington College Probe, According to Sanders Aide”

  1. Now watch the Alex Jones/ Blood and Soil Trumpsters blow a gasket over this. You can bet at least some of them will start yelling “Whitewater” and “Benghazi!!” over and over.

  2. Not only Alex Jones and company. I can’t wait for certain regular commenters here to start claiming shenanigans by Bernie and Jane led to this result. Some people will never accept that these are honorable people smeared by a Trumpeter of ill repute.

  3. Hey ,let’s not get carried away here . The bar is set pretty low if NOT being indicted on federal charges is proof of acting in an honorable manner . This issue does not cover the Sander’s in glory.

  6. The garbage kings never take a dive in the swamp. Politics is the most disgusting sport on earth. The only chance for the country is term limits and the swampers would never permit that.

  9. It was a pretty blatant case from what I read….. Must have been the democrat code of silence that protected her.

  10. It’s perfectly legal to lie on a mortgage loan application… as long as you are a prominent Democrat.

  11. Jane Sanders’ decision-making is often cited as the cause of the collapse of Burlington College, but this is a simplistic distortion. In fact it was the Board of Trustees who had ultimate fiduciary responsibility for the College, not Jane Sanders, who as president was an employee. Also frequently lost in this discussion is the fact that Sanders managed to obtain an extraordinarily valuable, irreplaceable tract of real estate at a bargain basement price, and had plans to sell or develop parts to raise funds as part of the master plan. The Board of Trustees did not approve of this plan. Instead, the land was sold in the end to a self-interested commercial developer who has destroyed the nature of the lot, turning it into an eyesore, and reaping millions.

  12. Some people will never accept that these are honorable people …

    And some people will never understand that they are just as blindly loyal to an egomaniacal huckster on the left as the Trumpsters are to an egomaniacal huckster on the right.

    Avoiding indictment hardly makes one an honorable person. What is it about lying on a bank loan and bankrupting a college and walking away with a $400,000 golden parachute that you just dont get?

  15. “Politicians and government are a crime gang.They are a threat to this republic.”

    Soooo…. anarchy is better. Or autocracy. You may be more comfortable in a little country in Asia just north of South Korea.

  17. Who cares if she ripped off students and taxpayers…I’m just going to sit back and watch the upcoming fecal matter show in Congress.

  19. So you have 200+ students, and the the Bank gives you a $6.5 Million dollar loan for a 10 Million dollar piece of property. The College is small but has money pledged by the Community to help it grow. The Pledges are real,faked or exaggerated to reach the Goal for the loan. Only Jane got a $200,000 severance pay. I have not read where anyone left behind got anything. Why did the People’s Bank give the Loan? That would be a big risk showing modest down payment. The students could not help pay it off.

  20. The best is yet to come this pair. Are tuning up to wreck all of our banks all the colleges all of health care and finally our entire country.

  23. The Socialist Sanders are following in their idols Clintons footsteps..Deny Deny and Deny some more. Blame everyone else for your loses. Take money from anyone, in others words being paid off. Clinton has a foundation Sanders has a foundation. see a connection here.??

  24. So lakefront property was sold to developers to pay off the debt.
    Good.
    More lakefront property in Vermont needs to be developed.
    Do you have any idea how many more New Yorkers need a second or third home on a lake?
    Nice job Ms. Sanders.

    We here in New Hampshire applaud you!

  25. So, lakefront property had to be sold to developers to pay off the fraudulently acquired debt.
    Great!!
    Do you know how many more New Yorkers need second or third homes on waterfront property?
    Wonderful job Ms. Sanders.
    We here in New Hampshire applaud you.

  27. They had her dead to rights on this and they drop the investigation, meanwhile they have been after Trump for the better part of two years, have found nothing and still it goes on wasting taxpayer dollars!

  29. IT HAS STARTED..THE FIX IS IN…/ALL DEMS THAT ARE UNDER INVESTIGATION WILL BE TURNED LOOSE AND PAID FOR THEIR INCONVIENENCE…WELCOME TO LIBERAL STATES OF ANARCHY…

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